Giant hogweed burns children and Plant hazard traced: these may sound like familiar headlines to anyone who has been following the week’s news and pictures showing horrific-looking blisters and sores caused by handling hogweed.
But these two stories date from 45 years ago, when, as nature writer Richard Mabey put it in his book Weeds, “a real triffid entered the public’s imagination”.
Two children suffering from burns caused by giant hogweed (Heracleum mantegazzianum) growing in London having “spread from Kew gardens” were reported in the Guardian on July 10 1970; the previous month, doctors at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Edinburgh had called for giant hogweed to be included in the official list of dangerous plants after young children suffered “severe blistering” from exposure to the plant.
The Guardian: Giant hogweed; digging deeper into the history of a 'killer weed'
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